The Church Showcases an Evolutionist

This is what is currently highlighted on the I'm a Mormon webpage.



I guess the PR department has gone rogue. ;-)

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A Conservative Approach to Environmental Problems

Jonathan Adler is a conservative-leaning law professor, who works on environmental issues. Last month he was invited to do a series of guest-posts at The Atlantic on conservative approaches to environmental issues [1]. I don't usually advocate for particular environmental policies on this blog, nor am I doing so here. However, since most environmental policies have a strong regulatory component administered by the federal government, and are therefore often viewed as 'liberal,' I thought it would be worth highlighting ideas from someone on the more conservative side. Adler argues that

the embrace of limited government principles need not entail the denial of environmental claims and that a concern for environmental protection need not lead to an ever increasing mound of prescriptive regulation.

The core of his argument involves a greater focus on property rights, and I think he makes a number of fine suggestions. I think it would be wonderful if voices like his could gain greater currency in the marketplace of ideas (and politics). This passage nicely encapsulates the bottom line.

Environmental problems are difficult, and typically defy easy solution. Though I believe in property-based solutions to many (if not most) environmental problems, the viability of such approaches should not be oversold. At the same time, the environmental limitations of property rights and markets should not be overstated, particularly in comparison to the viable regulatory alternatives. In environmental policy we rarely have the option of pursuing a clearly identifiable "ideal" approach. Rather, our choice comes from the collection of second-best (and third-best, fourth-best, etc.). The question is not which approach is perfect, but which approach is better (or not as bad) as the others.

Property Rights and the Tragedy of the Commons

Property Rights and Fishery Conservation

How Property Rights Could Help Save the Environment

Is Washington, D.C., Really the Environment's Savior?

A Conservative's Approach to Combating Climate Change


Notes:

1. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to define a conservative approach, since this year's conservative idea can be rejected as next year's totalitarianism (see cap-and-trade, individual mandate). As Adler was wrapping up his series of posts the House stopped NOAA from expanding its catch shares program, leading Ronald Bailey (of the libertarian Reason Magazine) to opine, "If it's not the Democrats screwing up policy, it's the Republicans - that's bipartisanship for you!"

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The Church Takes the Pragmatic View

The Deseret News has a nice article on the teaching of evolution, particularly at BYU. I like this part:

Scott Trotter, spokesman for the LDS Church, offered further clarification:

“Science and religion are not at odds in our faith. We accept truth wherever it is found and take the pragmatic view that where religion and science seem to clash, it is simply because there is insufficient data to reconcile the two.”

There are several ways to interpret that, but it's a whole lot better than it could have been, from my view.

H/T: Gary at NDBF, who shows what the statement could have been.

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The Book of Abraham: FARMS Phones It In

The most recent issue of the Maxwell Institute (FARMS) publication Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture (21:1) is now available online, and it has an article by LDS Egyptologist John Gee titled, "Formulas and Faith." Here, Gee addresses mathematical attempts to determine the length of the Joseph Smith papyri (which I discussed earlier). I should make clear that I am not any kind of expert on the papyri or the running arguments surrounding them. Nor do I know much about the persons involved. Nevertheless, I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed in this article for reasons that I will explain below.

Gee sets the issue up as follows:

One of the more prominent issues with the Book of Abraham is the relationship of the Book of Abraham to the Joseph Smith Papyri. There are three basic positions here:

1. The text of the Book of Abraham was translated from papyri that we currently have. (Or, from the unbelieving perspective, Joseph Smith thought that the text of the Book of Abraham was on papyri that we currently have.)

2. The text of the Book of Abraham was translated from (or Joseph Smith thought the text of the Book of Abraham was on) papyri that we do not currently have.

3. The text of the Book of Abraham was received by revelation independent of the papyri.

Gee notes that hardly any informed Mormons accept the first proposition. It may come as a surprise that Gee claims that the third option is held by a majority of Church members (something that may be worth some further attention later). From that perspective, the issue of scroll length is moot, but in light of the second theory Gee is willing to discuss the matter anyway (though I think I detect a sigh and roll of the eyes).

The crux of Gee's argument is that the formulas developed by Cook and Smith, and others, have not been tested on papyrus scrolls of known length. But Gee says that he has done so.

In November of 2010, I had the privilege of measuring the interior seventy-three windings of [a scroll at the Royal Ontario Museum] (after that point the scroll is no longer contiguous).

With the data gleaned from this intact roll in Toronto (that is, the individual winding lengths), I applied each of the mathematical formulas, using the assumptions made by the authors of the formulas concerning papyrus thickness, air-gap size, and size of smallest interior winding. I then compared the outcome with the actual interior length of the scroll. The results are shown on the graph.

I have to admit that I'm not entirely clear on how to interpret this graph--I think it shows the predicted remaining length as each additional winding is included in the calculation, with the outermost winding being number 72. Nevertheless, Gee's message is clear: neither formula is perfect, but Cook and Smith's formula is not even close.

On the basis of observations I have made while measuring various scrolls, I am not convinced that these formulas can ever yield anything more than rough approximations. More empirical data is needed to make refinements in the formulas.

Fair enough. It's worth noting, however, that if Cook and Smith's method underestimates true length by up to 75% (as Gee claims), that still puts the Hor scroll length at only 600 cm, less than half of Gee's estimate using the Hoffman formula, and perhaps a little cramped for the Book of Abraham. Nevertheless, Gee's caution is a point well taken. However, if you recall my previous post, Cook and Smith were explicit about their methodology, spelling out measurements, assumptions, and formulas. They wanted others to be able to reproduce their work. Now if you were Cook and Smith (or an interested third party) you might want to know where their formula breaks down, or how to adjust it to make it more accurate. Unfortunately you won't get any help from Gee in this article. Aside from the number of windings and the total length of the scroll, no measurements or details of how the winding locations were identified are given, nor is there any hint that they are forthcoming. All we have to go on is a graph and his assurance that it doesn't work. Nor does Gee address Cook and Smith's different winding length measurements for the Hor papyri. That seems like an insufficient response to me.

Moving on, I think Gee's article mis-characterizes the Cook and Smith article. First let's review the basic argument of Cook and Smith (my paraphrase):

1. Based on our calculations, the Hor scroll is too short to contain the Book of Abraham.
2. There is reason to think that the Hor scroll was the one identified as having the writings of Abraham.
3. Therefore, the Book of Abraham is probably not a direct translation of Egyptian text.

Before we look at Gee's further criticisms, you need to know that one witness described seeing a "long roll" (the apparent source of the Book of Abraham) and "another roll." Now let's look at Gee's criticisms, which are mostly confined to three paragraphs. We'll take them one at a time.

Although the Cook and Smith method of determining scroll length is anything but accurate[,]...even if it had been successful, it would have created other problems. Cook and Smith fail to establish which was the long roll because they applied their formula only to the Horos scroll; they did not apply it to any of the other extant scrolls and thus fail to meet another of the necessary conditions.... They measured only the Horos scroll because they assumed it to be the source of the Book of Abraham. Yet the eyewitnesses identify the long roll as the source. Bent on proving that the Horos scroll was not the long roll, they overlooked the implications of such a view. If the scroll of Horos is not the long roll, it simply cannot be the source of the text of the Book of Abraham (according to the accounts of the eyewitnesses). By endeavoring to prove that the Horus scroll was not the long roll, they would have undermined their own case, which depended on the Horos scroll being the proposed source of the text of the Book of Abraham.

'Long' is a relative term, and it seems to me that Gee is perhaps putting more weight on the distinction between a roll and a long roll than is warranted. (Wouldn't five feet be long to a non-Egyptologist?) Be that as it may, I don't see any evidence that Cook and Smith were "bent" on proving the Hor scroll was not the long roll. They don't frame the question in that way and, in fact, they don't even address the issue of the long roll until the end of their article when, lo and behold, they suggest that the Hor scroll was indeed the long one. But even if Gee is right about Cook and Smith disqualifying the Hor scroll as the long one, does that undermine their case? I guess it depends on what you interpret their case to be. Gee seems to imply that their case is that the Book of Abraham is bogus. But whatever the authors think personally, their article does not argue such a thing. At any rate, their immediate conclusion is that the Hor scroll did not contain the text of the Book of Abraham. If they unwittingly demonstrated that the other scroll was longer, then by Gee's criteria their conclusion is actually stronger.

Cook and Smith would like to minimize the length of the Horos scroll because they believe that finding would eliminate the possibility that the Book of Abraham was translated from a scroll that we do not currently have (theory 2). Even if their calculations had been correct and thus had shown that the scroll of Horos was not the long roll observed by the witnesses, that simply would have meant that another scroll would have been the scroll containing the Book of Abraham. So their attempt to eliminate theory 2 as a possibility would not, in fact, have actually been successful even had their formula correctly predicted a short length for the scroll of Horus.

Here Gee makes a logical leap of his own, which is to assume that if the Hor scroll was too short to contain the Book of Abraham, then another scroll must be longer. What is the justification for that? Gee makes a good point--that it would have been better if Cook and Smith had also evaluated the other fragments for comparison. But if Cook and Smith had determined that another scroll was longer, would that necessarily mean anything? I guess it depends on how much longer. But at the very least, someone would need to explain why the Book of Abraham referred to a vignette (Facsimile 1) on a totally different scroll, which was owned by a different person [1].

Furthermore, their attempt, even if successful, would not have eliminated the most popular theory—that Joseph Smith received the Book of Abraham by revelation unconnected with the papyri (theory 3). It certainly cannot force anyone to accept the theory that the Book of Abraham was translated from the extant fragments of the Joseph Smith Papyri (theory 1) since that theory is excluded by the historical evidence. So for those who care about such matters, there are still two theories (2 and 3) that are not excluded from consideration.

Here we come to the reason I quoted the conclusion of Cook and Smith in my previous post. Having ruled out the scroll of Hor as the source of the text, they listed several alternatives. Here they are again:

(1) the Document of Breathing served as a mnemonic device for the Book of Abraham, (2) the Breathing text served as a catalyst (rather than source text) for the Book of Abraham, (3) the Document of Breathing is a corrupted version of the Book of Abraham, which Smith restored to its pristine state, or (4) the Book of Abraham is simply an imaginative mistranslation of the hieratic script.

Hey, I recognize that second option and it looks a lot like Gee's theory 3. Gee doesn't seem to recognize that Cook and Smith's work supports his preferred theory (at least by popularity--allegedly), by their own admission.

All of this leads me to conclude that Gee's article does not engage Cook and Smith's work in a fair or convincing manner. People who only read Gee's article will get the impression that he has bested bumbling critics who can't construct a coherent argument. However, having read both articles, I get the impression that Gee didn't read theirs very carefully.


Notes:

1. One suggestion that I have seen is that Abraham referred to a figure that was missing from the papyri, so Joseph adapted by using a different illustration.

Further Reading:
A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri by John Gee

Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri by John Gee

Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri by John Gee

I Have a Question: Why doesn’t the translation of the Egyptian papyri found in 1967 match the text of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price? by Michael D. Rhodes

Criticisms of Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham, by W. V. Smith

FAIR Wiki: Book of Abraham Papyri

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Was the Book of Abraham Too Long for its Papyrus?

While the saints were in Kirtland, Joseph Smith acquired some Egyptian mummies and papyri from a traveling showman. Having examined the papyri, he said that they contained the writings of Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. The Book of Abraham, now in the Pearl of Great Price is the product of Joseph's translation work. Because the outermost portions of the scrolls of papyri were fragile, they were separated from the rolls and mounted on paper. Following Joseph's death, the papyri were divided up and some of them ended up at a museum in Chicago, where they were apparently destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871. However, at least some of the mounted fragments of papyri eventually made their way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1918, and were later given to the Church in 1967. One of the fragments of papyri is immediately recognizable as Facsimile 1 in the Book of Abraham.

The re-discovery of the papyri was exciting because it offered an opportunity to check Joseph's translation against that of modern scholars. It quickly became apparent that the surviving fragments did not contain the Book of Abraham. At first glance it appeared that Joseph Smith was proven wrong. However, although one might expect the writing surrounding the vignette that became Facsimile 1 to be the Book of Abraham, defenders have noted that the Egyptians often placed vignettes next to unrelated text. It is therefore possible that the text of the Book of Abraham came from another portion of the papyrus. But how much papyrus was there?

Joseph originally had at least five different documents, with only three of them represented by surviving fragments of papyri. Facsimile 1 comes from a document called the Book of Breathings made by Isis and was owned by a man named Hor. Facsimile 3 also comes from this scroll, but it was destroyed in the fire with the rest of the scroll. Facsimile 2 was an independent document. Given that the Hor scroll contains (or contained) Facsimiles 1 and 3, it is natural to assume that this scroll was the source of the Book of Abraham. This assumption is strengthened by the book itself, which says:

12. And it came to pass that the priests laid violence upon me, that they might slay me also, as they did those virgins upon this altar; and that you may have a knowledge of this altar, I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record.

13. It was made after the form of a bedstead, such as was had among the Chaldeans, and it stood before the gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and also a god like unto that of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

14. That you may have an understanding of these gods, I have given you the fashion of them in the figures at the beginning, which manner of figures is called by the Chaldeans Rahleenos, which signifies hieroglyphics. [Abraham 1:12-14]

So how long was the Hor scroll? The surviving portions of this scroll apparently come from the outer end, as mentioned above. Although its original length is unknown, one can take a couple of approaches to estimating. One way is to compare to similar scrolls of the same period. You can also take a mathematical approach to the question because when the scroll was wrapped up, the outermost portion of the scroll contained the rest within it. With an idea of the winding length and the thickness of the papyri, one can estimate the maximum length of the scroll. (Imagine taking a roll of toilet paper and using a marker to draw a line from the cardboard tube to the outer edge--but just on one side so that the line roughly represents the radius. When unrolled, you would see a repeating pattern of marks at one of the edges. The distance between marks would be the winding length, which shortens as you progress toward the original center.)

LDS Egyptologist (and FARMS associate) John Gee originally went with a generic estimate of 320 cm (10.5 ft). However, after applying a published mathematical formula, he updated his estimate to 1250.5 cm (41 ft).

So far so good.

In the Winter 2010 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, independent researchers Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith published a paper, "The Original Length of the Scroll of Hôr," that took another look at the question [1]. They wrote:

Gee reported 9.7 and 9.5 cm as the lengths of the first and seventh windings, respectively, but offered no details regarding identification of winding locations. When we attempted to replicate Gee’s results, we found that his measurements did not seem to be accurate, and in fact required that the papyrus be impossibly thin.

In the rest of their paper, Cook and Smith described in detail how they attacked the question. Briefly, they traced the original papyri (because they were not permitted to photograph them) and then digitized their tracings to convert them into a grid of measurements. To determine winding locations (i.e. repeating patterns of damage to the upper and lower edges), they used a mathematical autocorrelation formula in order to reduce subjectivity. Let's look at an example. First we have a tracing of the papyri overlaid onto an independently obtained photograph.

Next, the upper portion of the of the tracing has been digitized into a coordinate system that matches the contour of the of papyri (though it is a little vertically stretched). The dotted lines show the same tracing shifted 10.42 cm to the right. Note the general agreement in contour.

Here is the output of the correlation function, which has a peak at 10.42 cm. This is the winding length, and was used in the last figure to determine the winding location.

Cook and Smith applied this method to the top and bottom of each fragment from the Hor roll. A cursory examination of the paper reveals lots of mathematical formulas and figures. The authors wrote:

Our choices are based on a desire to provide all details necessary for others to verify our work and duplicate our results.

In endnote 39 they add:

We are happy to make our data available to anyone interested in verifying our results.

I'm not going to pretend that I fully understand their method. Math is not a strength of mine. But those who do understand should be able to replicate their results.

When it's all put together, Cook and Smith estimate that the Hor scroll was approximately 150 cm (4.9 ft). Their estimate is within 3 cm of that of Klaus Baer (Hugh Nibley's Egyptology tutor). Based on the width of the surviving columns of text, and how it correlates to English translation, Cook and Smith estimate that the Book of Abraham would have required at least 511 cm (16.8 ft). Therefore, they argue that the Hor scroll is too short to have contained the Book of Abraham.

I don't know whether they are right or not, but it's a fun and interesting exercise. Their concluding paragraphs will be important later, so I quote them in full.

In recognition of the unlikelihood that there ever was a Book of Abraham source text on the inner section of the Hôr scroll, several alternative theories have been put forth to the effect that: (1) the Document of Breathing served as a mnemonic device for the Book of Abraham, (2) the Breathing text served as a catalyst (rather than source text) for the Book of Abraham, (3) the Document of Breathing is a corrupted version of the Book of Abraham, which Smith restored to its pristine state, or (4) the Book of Abraham is simply an imaginative mistranslation of the hieratic script. The ultimate success of any existing or future theory will depend on its ability to account for all of the evidence, including the fact that there was simply no room on the papyrus for anything besides the Breathing text.

Irrespective of Joseph’s method of translation, it is clear that he sensed in the Hôr scroll a richness of symbolic and religious potential that contemporary scholars could not see. To the experts who viewed Chandler’s collection in New York and Philadelphia, the Hôr scroll was a cryptic relic of a dead religion from a dusty tomb. Joseph, however, breathed fresh meaning into the crumbling little scroll, giving it new life as powerful scripture for the latter days. Perhaps the Egyptian vision of the afterlife, described in Hôr’s Document of Breathing, is not so far-fetched after all.

In my next post we will look at the FARMS response.

Notes:

1. Cook is a physicist and Smith is a graduate student in religious studies. Smith is not LDS; I don't know about Cook.

Further Reading:
A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri by John Gee

Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri by John Gee

Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri by John Gee

I Have a Question: Why doesn’t the translation of the Egyptian papyri found in 1967 match the text of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price? by Michael D. Rhodes

Criticisms of Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham, by W. V. Smith

FAIR Wiki: Book of Abraham Papyri

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The Transit of Venus (Life Sucks Edition)

Today is a transit of Venus. Venus's transits across the sun occur in pairs eight years apart. The last one was in 2004 and there will not be another one until 2117. They played an important role in helping astronomers to figure out the size of the solar system. In his book, Coming of Age in the Milky Way (you really should read it if you haven't), Timothy Ferris recounts the trials early astronomers went through in order to push the boundaries of knowledge. My favorite story is as follows:

Guillaume le Gentil...sailed from France on March 26, 1760, planning to observe the transit [of Venus] the following year from the east coast of India. Monsoons blew his ship off course, and transit day found him becalmed in the middle of the Indian Ocean, unable to make any useful observations. Determined to redeem the expedition by observing the second transit, Le Gentil booked passage to India, built an observatory atop an obsolete powder magazine in Pondicherry, and waited. The sky remained marvelously clear throughout May, only to cloud over on June 4, the morning of the transit, then clear again as soon as the transit was over. ...

Worse lay ahead. Stricken with dysentery, Le Gentil remained in India for another nine months, bedridden. He then booked passage home aboard a Spanish warship that was demasted in a hurricane off the Cape of Good Hope and blown off course north of the Azores before finally limping into port at Cadiz. Le Gentil crossed the Pyrenees and at last set foot on French soil, after eleven years, six months, and thirteen days of absence. Upon his return to Paris he learned that he had been declared dead, his estate looted, and its remains divided up among his heirs and creditors.

That story makes me laugh every time I read it.

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Review of Parallels and Convergences

In March of 2009 a group of LDS engineers (mostly) gathered for a conference at Claremont Graduate University focusing on Mormon perspectives on engineering. Videos of the talks were made available online, and now Kofford Books has published the talks as a collection of essays. It is edited by A. Scott Howe and Richard L. Bushman (yes, the), the principle conference organizers.

Overview

What does Mormonism have to do with engineering? Is there something about the gospel that improves bridges, batteries, or automobiles? Terryl Givens' introduction, "No Small and Cramped Eternities: Parley Pratt and the Foundations of Mormon Cosmology," which was the keynote address at the conference, provides the basic orientation. He describes Pratt's role in systematizing and popularizing Joseph Smith's teachings, particularly with respect to the eternal nature of element and the physical corporeal nature of God. The result can perhaps be summarized with the following sentence.

What this means is that, by naturalizing Deity, the entire universe of God and humankind, heaven and hell, body and spirit, the eternal and the mundane—all are collapsed into one sphere.

With this idea in place it becomes easier to see God as a master engineer, who possesses and uses technologies that seem miraculous to us. Thus the interest of LDS engineers. The rest of the book follows in this vein with speculative excursions into the nature of spirit matter and how human advances in technology may fulfill prophecy and God's purposes. Essays cover the concept of Gaia, how Mormonism dovetails with transhumanism, a novel argument for the existence of God, and more. The book wraps up with a survey of technological advances by David Bailey. It is a credit to the organizers that they were able to attract the involvement of Richard Bushman, Terryl Givens, and David Bailey.

The introduction to the first section of chapters opens with this arresting idea, which also serves as an additional overarching theme:

In the same way that each person should have the privilege of hearing the gospel in his or her own language, it might be important to consider that technical language is another mode of expression into which we ought to translate our most important concepts.

Although the scientific revolution began with figures like Galileo and Newton, most of what is taught in college courses on any scientific topic dates from the late 19th century onward. With two minor exceptions, none of our canonized scripture was written after 1847. Is it any wonder, then, that scripture and science often do not speak the same 'language'? In fact, Givens goes so far as to suggest that the "humanizing and temporalizing" of God by Joseph Smith's King Follett discourse,

does have one virtue, however—one that we will have the boldness perhaps to someday plumb, in that it lends itself to the world’s best hope for a naturalistic theology. Stripped of all invocations of transcendent entities and transcendent eternities, such a universe should be at least potentially appealing to the hardcore materialists currently working the anti-God/anti-religion circuit [1].

After quoting Richard Dawkins--a prominent scientist and atheist--to the effect that god-like extraterrestrials probably exist, a later essay asserts:

“Eternal progression” is what Mormons call that perhaps unfamiliar version of Darwinian evolution. “God” is what Mormons call those god-like extraterrestrials that didn’t start that way. Whether we ever get to know them or not, there are very probably gods. So says Richard Dawkins. So said Joseph Smith.

Translation indeed!

The book has many interesting ideas--sometimes old ideas presented in new ways. For example, chapter 11, "Spiritual Underpinnings for a Space Program," makes an impassioned defense of space exploration, and the authors envision a future day of planet colonization as fulfilling God's purposes.

It should be apparent that the peopling of other worlds will occur according to natural laws and that the recent outpouring of inspiration regarding space technology might be for the purpose of building a foundation of necessary technologies that will allow us to participate in this great work.

In this essay, planetary colonists become futuristic Jaredites.

This is all heady stuff that's fun to think about. Given the speculative nature of the topics discussed, I suppose it was inevitable that I would find some things to object to. Some of the towers of logic are constructed quickly, but perhaps not durably. I am not an engineer; my background is in the biological sciences. Nevertheless, a few problems stood out to me that I would like to briefly tackle.

Criticisms

One essay claimed that:

Inside each cell, ribosomes are a form of enzyme that are highly interconnected with microtubules. They read RNA strands and manufacture proteins that are building blocks for various cell structures. Microtubules function as both scaffolding and as microprocessors for the cell. From an engineer’s perspective, the microtubules (controller) and ribosomes (factory) would be exactly the sorts of functions where we would want to have a capacity for remote control.

Anybody who has taken a cell biology course will be familiar with the scaffolding role of microtubules. But the notion that they are microprocessors that participate in neural networks, and might even be involved in consciousness, was new to me. Granted, I am not a neuroscientist; but my brief look into the scientific literature suggests that these ideas are being promoted by a small handful of theorists who admit that they don't have solid evidence of these functions yet. Thus I believe that any functional role of microtubules in brain function, apart from their structural role in cells, remains hypothetical at best. As to the broader point, I am not aware of a significant interaction between ribosomes and microtubules under normal circumstances, and I don't know that I've ever heard of microtubules playing a role in the regulation of gene expression--they certainly are not among the chief mechanisms.

You might expect me to bring this up, but in the essay arguing for space exploration the authors write:

The Creation story mentions several points at which God and those involved in the preparation of the new world initiate new phases in the Creation sequence. We can imagine advanced celestial engineers periodically visiting the new world to take samples of the atmosphere, water, soil, and variety of organisms and determining that the planet is ready for the next step. We can see in our mind’s eye advanced celestial biologists selectively engineering certain organisms and releasing them into the environment where they take over the older generations, and slowly bring the biosphere up to a new level of readiness.

Indeed, I think this kind of scenario is envisioned by many Mormons. However, the paragraph immediately preceding the one just quoted says:

Perhaps the evidence shows a kinship of all life because the advanced engineers used the same highly adaptive set of programmable building blocks to construct the bodies of each species. Whether the organisms appeared strictly through emergence from a single ancestor or were physically brought and placed in turn as an already developed species, that kinship would be apparent.

This is an argument that is popular with young-earth creationists and intelligent design proponents alike. It seems quite reasonable because it appeals to common sense and experience, but unfortunately it is not well supported by the evidence. Now is not the time to get into the details, but generally speaking, the sequence divergence for the same gene in different species is proportional to their evolutionary separation. Furthermore, our genomes bear the marks of history; approximately half is made up of broken viruses and other self-replicating (or formerly so) DNA elements, much of which we share with other species in patterns that are easy to understand from the perspective of common descent but difficult to justify from a design perspective. With respect to patterns, the same could be said for the fossil record.

The same essay employs quotations from several Church leaders in support of the idea that life on our planet was brought from a previous one, and this is used as implicit support for the idea that we might reach out and colonize other planets. One of the leaders quoted is Joseph Fielding Smith, who said that the universe is peopled with God's children. Although strictly speaking this quote is not misused, it is misleading in the larger context. President Smith is often said to have predicted that man would not go to the moon, with the Apollo landings as an obvious refutation. But this obscures his larger point which, ironically, was that Earth was created as the dwelling place for humans, and that we have no business trying to colonize the moon or any other planet. He might turn out to be wrong on that too, but he clearly would not have agreed with the thesis of the essay.

Chapter 7, "Quantified Morality," sketches out an idea of how morality can be quantified. The basic principle is that moral decisions maintain the greatest number of future possibilities. This interesting idea is then converted into the concept of entropy, which theoretically could be quantified. To put it simply, destructive behaviors are said to increase disorder (entropy) and righteous behaviors minimize disorder, or even create order (i.e. decreasing entropy). The problem with this that any local decrease in entropy is always more than offset by an increase in entropy elsewhere. Yes, your room is more ordered after you clean it, but any drop in entropy is offset by the energy you use and the heat you produce while doing so. Living organisms are great at increasing entropy. So if changes in entropy are the measure of morality, a desolate planet is morally superior to one filled with life. Yet, even though I think this essay is fundamentally flawed, there are gems of interest. Consider this:

As we contemplate the eternal principle of self-replication as a way to combat entropy at all levels [which I dispute], we can speculate that self-replication also applies to planets—that the inhabitants of one world grow and progress until they eventually achieve the ability to replicate their biosphere on another world: “And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words. For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:38–39).

I never thought of that scripture like that before.

Chapter 8 contains a more mundane error.

We have evidence that our ancestors used spears 5 million years ago, but did not fire-harden the points until 500,000 years ago. Over 100,000 years later, we began making complex blades. Roughly 65,000 years after that, we began using the bow and arrow; 14,000 years after that, we began using gunpowder. Less than a thousand years later, we used a nuclear weapon in war.

This appears to assume that spear use by chimpanzees can be extrapolated to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees 5-6 million years ago. Be that as it may, the subsequent chronology puts the first nuclear weapon at roughly 320,000 years ago.

Conclusion

The value of this book is not in its explication of science, which I have noted is suspect at times. To me, the value of the book is the new perspectives that it brings to the scriptures and words of Church leaders, emphasizing the exciting and forward-looking side of our theology. I think it would make a nice gift for your scientifically inclined LDS friend or relative. My personal opinion is that if you want this for yourself, a cheaper electronic copy is a better choice, but I may be biased by the fact that I was already broadly familiar with the contents of the book. Then again, there are several engineers in my ward who might enjoy the book and it's too bad I can't easily lend it to them. In my opinion, more Mormons should be thinking along the lines of this book.

Notes:
This review is based on a complementary Kindle copy that I received.

1. Givens elaborated on this somewhat in the Q&A at the conference.

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